Moreton Bay - Strathpine to Caboolture trail

Travelling along Gympie road between Strathpine and Caboolture you will find numerous places reflecting the settlement of the district. Timber-getter Tom Petrie was instrumental in marking out this road as he had travelled regularly through the district seeking timber resources and negotiating access through the traditional lands of the local Aboriginal people: Gubbi Gubbi and Wakka Wakka. Gympie Road further developed following the 1867 discovery of gold in Gympie. From 1868, coaches operated by Cobb and Co, ran between Brisbane and Gympie, stopping at Tom Petrie’s ‘Murrumba’ homestead to change horses. The homestead, built in 1864, was demolished in the 1950s. Only the trees planted by Tom Petrie remain on the site of Our Lady of the Way Church; established a century after Murrumba homestead.

The Gympie railway reached Petrie in 1888 and Gympie in 1889. The railway allowed day trippers to travel to the North Pine River for picnics. Sweeney’s Reserve was a popular destination and by the 1920s it had bathing sheds and a kiosk. Queensland’s Main Roads Commission began building road side rest areas for weary travellers in the 1930s. The rest area at Petrie complements Sweeney’s Reserve; both providing shady riverfront picnic facilities.

Nearby, on the south bank of the river, Steven Law Park at Lawnton is a small part of the grounds of the Acclimatisation Society of Queensland. This society was founded in 1862 and experimented with varieties of sugar cane in 1863-4 in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. Its headquarters were in Bowen Park in Brisbane. It relocated to Lawnton in 1914 and continued the propagation and cultivation of important agricultural crops in Queensland. Sugar was first grown on the south bank of the Caboolture River in the 1860s. The site of the 1865 ‘Oaklands’ sugar plantation is now a small park in Captain Whish Avenue. The 1866 ‘Morayfield’ plantation site to the east is currently inaccessible.

Other significant heritage places nearby include the 1889 Pine Rivers Shire Hall at Strathpine; Petrie State School which retains its 1878 building; the 1884 North Pine Presbyterian Church in the grounds of the historical village at Kurwongabah; and the adjacent North Pine Pumping Station, built in 1957 in conjunction with the creation of Lake Kurwongaba, completed in 1961.

Anzac Avenue of Memorial Trees was planted between 1922 and 1925. It follows the original road to Redcliffe, used prior to the 1935 opening of the Hornibrook Highway. While the trees honour local servicemen; so does the WWI Strathpine Honour Board, housed in the RSL Sub Branch building at North’s Leagues Club.